On the Scene - Women and Sport Closes Without Certainty on Saudi Arabia

(ATR) The Fifth World Conference on Women and Sport closes with "cautious optimism" from IOC president Jacques Rogge that Saudi Arabia will send athletes of both sexes to London 2012.

"We are working together with the National Olympic Committee of Saudi Arabia to ensure participation of female athletes," he said Saturday in Los Angeles, "and I am cautiously optimistic that we will succeed."

Rogge's response came two days after Human Rights Watch released a report documenting how state-supported schools prohibit women's participation in sport and calling on the IOC to make a mixed team mandatory for Saudis to compete at the Olympics.

Saudi Arabia has never sent a woman to the Summer or Winter Games. As the IOC president noted, however, Dalma Rushdi Malhas became the first Saudi female to compete in an Olympics of any sort at Singapore 2010 and brought home an equestrian bronze medal to boot.

Malhas, 20, twice featured during the conference, first when IOC member Nawal El Moutawakel of Morocco called her onstage during a Friday panel on "Partnerships for Progress" and again Saturday as a speaker for "Growing Up in a Gender-Balanced Sporting Society" with young athletes, reporters and ambassadors reflecting on their Youth Olympic Games experiences.

Asked by Around the Rings what the IOC is willing to do to force change among the NOCs and international federations, particularly at the leadership level, Rogge echoed the closing recommendations of the conference, a document to be known as "The Los Angeles Declaration" and to be released publicly Sunday following final approval by the Women and Sport Commission.

"I think we need a new push for inclusion of women in leadership positions. There has been a regression," he said, referencing Women and Sport chair Anita DeFrantz's remarks during Thursday's opening ceremony that nine IFs now have no women on their executive boards.

For comparison, there are two EB members and 17 additional female members of the IOC, who Rogge readily admitted still has work to do to achieve gender equity.

"I can also say that we have to fulfill our own responsibility because in the IOC, without jumping the gun, I think I can say thatafter the session in London, we will have most likely 21 women serving in the IOC. There are two that are going to presented at the general assembly. That will lead us to 19.5 percent, and I can say that by next year we will have the 20 percent," he said in reference to the Women and Sport Commission's benchmark figure.

"It's not enough, and that 's not the end of the story, but that's an important part."

Rogge added with a nod to DeFrantz: "And believe me, Anita will remind me to speak to the IFs and the NOCs."

After rousing testimony earlier Saturday from long-distance swimmer, author and star presenter Diana Nyad about sexual abuse of female athletes by their coaches – and subsequent comments throughout theday from other women delegates – the IOC fell notably short of including any sort of implementation mechanisms within its consensus statement.

Rogge instead pointed to a white paper on the topic produced three years ago by the IOC Medical Commission and Ethics Commission, then distributed to all IFs and NOCs.

"I believe that we are very very sensitive to this very important issue," he said during the closing press conference, adding that the IOC made a major effort to educate athletes competing at the Youth Olympic Games on the subject and that there will be an ombudsman at London 2012 to hear complaints following a successful debut at Singapore 2010.

According to DeFrantz, "getting women prepared for election" is her first order of business following the three-day conference conducted under her direction. Most international federations will choose new leaders this year and next, she said, so the time is now to act upon the frequent calls to action heard this weekend in Los Angeles.

"There is one thing you have to do," added Rogge.

"You have to run for office. If you don't run for office, you'll never get elected. And in the worst case scenario that you don't win, there's nothing humiliating in losing an election for a noble cause, and you will probably make the men feel guilty."

Written in Los Angeles by Matthew Grayson.

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